I am a Burmese exile taking a near-permanent refuge in New York and Sydney. Here are my essays about Burma and anything else I feel like writing about. And posting the articles I like from selected sites. Bridging Burma to the world this Blog is more of a Politically-Oriented Literary Blog than a Plain News Blog or a Sophisticated Thoughts Blog.

Monday, June 22, 2015

UK Home Office Unveils New Anti-Islamist Policy

No travel, no Sharia, no citizenship:
UK Home Office unveils tough anti-Islamist strategy. A new government
anti-extremist strategy will ban thousands of Britons from travelling to
conflict zones, target Sharia courts, and make it harder to obtain citizenship.
The reforms come alongside news that 320 ISIS fighters have returned to the UK.

“In the past, there has been a risk
that the Government sends an ambivalent and dangerous message – that it doesn’t
really matter if you don’t believe in democracy,” says the text of the leaked
Home Office-authored draft document, quoted in the Telegraph. “We need to stand
up and be more assertive in promoting our values and challenging the extremists
who fundamentally oppose them.”

The strategy is expected to be made
public in the coming weeks, and will become effective as soon as it is
rubberstamped by the government. It represents a fundamental retrenchment
against Islamists – both, those at home, and potential recruits for
international terrorist conflicts abroad.

Repeatedly mentioning “British values,”
it contains a foreword by Conservative Home Secretary Theresa May, and is a
culmination of her campaign to “undermine and eliminate extremism in all its
forms,” which resulted in tough new legislation being passed in Parliament last
November.

The government will introduce new rules
that would make it easier to remove a much greater number of suspected terror
recruits from commercial flights travelling to conflict zones. While a no-fly
list already exists, UK security forces have been embarrassed by revelations of
not just suspected extremists, such as the London-raised Mohamed Emwazi, known
as the executioner "Jihadi John," being able to leave the Britain,
but also women and children.

Senior National Coordinator for Counter
Terrorism, Helen Ball, announced on Sunday that young and underage females, who
were reported missing by 22 families over the past year, were able to travel to
Syria without impediment.

From now on, as well as the list,
companies operating potential terrorist routes would have to ask for “authority
to carry” passengers after presenting a boarding list to government agencies –
something that is nominally done, but not always complied with – or face a
£50,000 fine.

The Home Office has told the Telegraph
that it now believes 320 jihadists, who have participated in the conflict in
Syria and Iraq have returned to the UK, up from a previous estimate of 250.
“Two dozen” of those have already been involved in terrorist plots inside the
United Kingdom, which have been prevented, according to the authorities.

A fight against ‘legal’ extremism

The domestic segment of the strategy
explicitly targets behavior that is “often legal”, but causes “very significant
damage to our communities”. The initiative proposes an “independent review” of
Sharia courts and councils, which it says are creating a “parallel system of
law.” Around 85 of these institutions – which have no official legal authority,
but are used to settle financial and family issues between Muslims – are
thought to operate in the UK, often next to mosques.

The document says the Home Office is
“concerned about the way Sharia councils are working in some parts of the
country” among “troubling reports that in some areas women have suffered from
the way these councils work, either through forced marriage or discriminatory
divorce proceedings.”

The Home Office will also combat
perfidious ‘entryism’ where radical Islamists have infiltrated or partnered up
with legitimate organizations “to gain positions of influence to better enable
them to promote their own values.”

Among specific instances it mentions is the ‘The Trojan Horse Plot,’ in
which radical Muslims acquired positions of power in as many as 21 schools in
Birmingham, which they then used to Islamize the institutions and sideline
opponents. The Home office says the plot was “not an isolated example.”

The document promises not only to root
out extremism in schools, but also to “take steps to ensure the safeguarding of
children in hitherto unregulated places,” by preventing radical religious
teachers from contacting minors. One of the Trojan Plot teachers is continuing
to tutor students in a private center, and would be banned from doing so under
the new laws.

Higher learning institutions such as
the University of Westminster, Emwazi’s alma matter, which has become an
alleged hotbed of Islamic radicalism and has hosted hate preachers, could be
affected, as the government “will introduce the power to refuse or remove
licences to sponsor visa applications from any institution in the UK which
promotes extremist views or knowingly and without challenge hosts extremist
speakers.”

Another example of is the Muslim-dominated London borough of Tower
Hamlets, which is accused of embracing “partisan community politics that was to
the detriment of integration and community cohesion.” Its Bangladeshi-born
mayor Lutfur Rahman, who is currently under investigation, is accused of
presiding over a council noted for “abuse of taxpayers’ money” and “culture of
cronyism,” and allowing “widespread allegations of extremism, homophobia and
anti-Semitism to fester without proper challenge.”

Among other proposals, is restricting
asylum to valid refugees who oppose “British values,” as well as making anyone
on the citizenship track “prove adherence to British values and active
participation in society.” The UK currently operates a basic citizenship test,
which amounts to a quiz that also serves to ascertain the applicants’ command
of English. Under new proposals, those who fail to study the language will also
get their benefits stopped.

Membership in the Muslim Brotherhood,
which has millions of members across the Arab world, will also be treated as an
“ideological precursor to terrorism”. Among more general practices to be
addressed by the new strategy are also female genital mutilation and honor
killings.